Being a second generation immigrant, born in India, and being raised in the states, has placed me in fraction of the populous that grew up understanding commitment in a completely different manner than both my parents, and my society. My parents were raised their entire life in a country that classified marriage as commitment, as a duty, as a responsibility, and as an inequality. Now, though I love my culture, I love my heritage, and I like to believe I’m in touch with my roots, the society I adhere to is that which I have been raised in. The culture and upbringing I have received in the United States is indicative of the society I affiliate with. My society, contrary to my parents, distinguishes marriage primarily with love, affection, desire, and equality. It takes an immigrant, though, to realize one very important thing; both culture’s views on marriage are outrageously flawed.

Let’s break down the cons list for India. A large majority of the Indian marriages don’t even necessarily occur through self pursuit and love. Though now the East may be modernizing, the broad amount of matrimonies are bonded through families developing relations for business, for stature, or for personal gain. The dowry system of the past was prognostic of the fact that the happiness of the couple came after the happiness of the family’s eminence. Commitment and duty are the attributes of marriage that are emphasized but love and affection are set aside and the relationship turns into a job that you will be, so to say, “stuck” with for the rest of your life. Plenty of relationships today are accepting equality amongst the couples in respect to having freedom to pursue their careers and fulfill their desires, however, in the past and still today there are cases of women being distinguished as “mothers” who have to stay back and take care of the children or “wives” who are to be responsible for the household activities. So though the world is progressing forward, the uneducated remain uneducated, and the poor remain poor, with consequences such as a lack of understanding for core values still remaining prevalent. A sense of duty inaccurately placed upon the culture of marriage becomes more controlling than it does influential.

The more westernized culture of marriage is not short of fault either. We emphasize love, but not compromise, we glorify lust but not trust, and we focus on compatibility but not on responsibility. These are not the premises upon which you can build a relationship. Oh and yeah, not to mention, the west doesn’t focus on “building” a relationship either. If something in a relationship goes wrong, the solution is to say clearly it can’t work because problems like this aren’t supposed to happen. Nonsense. Problems will arise in any relationship because perfect relationships are only real in fictional movies that indoctrinate us to have a preconceived notion about commitment. Single people who have nothing better to do in their spare time make twitter accounts that, rather than promoting putting in work for a relationship, state that “if so and so truly cares about you, he/she shouldn’t be doing this or that.” Think about it. Think about all the times you got mad at someone after going on twitter or you felt like you could connect or relate to a tweet about relationships. I guarantee you it was something that boosted your self esteem or took a side. Tweets from such idiotic accounts always tend to take a side of either party being right or wrong, and consequently, the path of working to fix something turns into the ideal to stand one’s ground ignorantly. Tweets will always say things such as “if you love her you need to chase after her no matter what” but will never say things such as “if you care about each other you need to talk things through not run from them.” With a 40 to 50 percent divorce rate, the facts only advocate our lack of ability to sustain the bonds we attempt to create. Our entire society promotes that relationships should just work like two puzzle pieces working together, however, does not emphasize stress that relationships are like sculptures; artists make sculptures because that’s their love and passion. When they have the inclination they will give it their all, but to do so, they must mold a structure, develop patience, polish the imperfections, chisel away the unnecessaries, and commit to their work to create something they're proud of.

Emotional inclination is simply a catalyst for a relationship, and commitment, responsibility, and duty are the mechanisms that keep the relationship going. You can’t start a car without a fuel source, we all know that. You, however, could have all the fuel in the world, but it’s utterly useless if your infrastructure can’t maintain it and work with it. Consequently, the east struggles to find a passionate fuel source that can actuate a real relationship, but the west is challenged by not having the factors that can sustain that fuel source and manifest it into a long term working system. Our love for those we care about is the driving force that in theory should be the incentive to push through obstacles to make our bonds stronger. To commit and to try to create lifelong bonds are privileges that should be taken advantage of not burdens we should shy away from. The title is states why being an immigrant, or basically someone who can appreciate and grow from the understanding of more than just one culture, can utilize those perspectives and apply them to how a relationship should work. The title also includes the words “marriages” not “marriage.” This is because all our marriages, our marriage to work, our marriage to our friends, and our marriage to our ideals and values should have the same balance of love and commitment if we truly ever hope to have a long lasting future with our ties.